LOCALISATION FRONTALIERE DES CAMPS DES REFUGIES BURUNDAIS A L’EST DE LA RDC : ANALYSE CRITIQUE
BORDER LOCATION OF BURUNDIAN REFUGEE CAMPS IN EASTERN DRC: A CRITICAL ANALYSIS

Summary/Abstract: Since the beginning in March 2015 of the political crisis that shook Burundi, with the focus on the re-election of President Pierre Nkurunziza to a third term deemed unconstitutional by the opposition, the UNHCR had estimated that 14,300 Burundians had entered Congolese territory as political refugees. They arrived in the region fleeing the killings and abuses allegedly committed by the "Imbonerakure" militia, presumed to belong to the party in power in Burundi. As a result, a refugee camp was established in Lusenda to accommodate Burundian refugees, and a second one in Mulongwe after the first one was saturated and exceeded the expected number of refugees, reaching over 40,000. These two Burundian refugee camps are located in villages with the same names, less than fifteen kilometers from Lake Tanganyika, the baseline of the DRC's eastern border with the Republic of Burundi. According to our analysis, these sites do not offer the best conditions for refugee camps for reasons that we will outline in the following lines. Our analysis in this article is to alert to the great danger that threatens the DRC because of its hospitality by repeating for the second time the mistake of placing refugee camps on its borders.

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